Presently, controlling the temperature of devices, such as semiconductor devices, based on thermoelectric cooling is applied to a wide range of devices and systems. For example, in optical communication systems it is important to monitor and control the temperature of devices so they remain operational and do not cause damage to other components. Such devices may include laser diodes, semiconductor optical amplifiers, erbium doped optical amplifiers, optical wavelength division multiplexers, and fiber Bragg gratings. A thermoelectric cooler (TEC) may be used to perform the function of cooling such devices. In addition, TECs are used in applications in many industries and fields, including biomedical devices, semiconductor microelectronic devices, and devices involving aerospace applications.
A TEC may be operated by a controller that drives the TEC. The operation of the controller for the TEC may rely on feed-back loop based electronic drivers that provide a controlled electrical current injection to the TEC. Generally, designing analog control loops for active optical devices involves the use of power operational amplifiers and power transistors. However, using power operational amplifiers and transistors has several drawbacks. For example, their use is costly. Second, power operational amplifiers and power transistors use a large amount of printed circuit board area. Therefore, it is inefficient to use these devices in applications where space is critical such as, for example, in telecommunications systems, pump laser controllers, continuous wave distributed feedback (CW DFB) laser controllers, Bragg gratings, temperature controllers, heater element controllers, thermoelectric controllers, L band drivers, C band drivers, S Band drivers, Raman amplifier controls, and semiconductor optical amplifier (SOA) driver controls. Third, using power operational amplifiers and power transistors gives rise to thermal inefficiencies, which may lead to the degradation of the components of the application. Since many applications using temperature controllers require low power consumption as well as compact size, the existing hardware is difficult to integrate into these applications. It is therefore desirable to provide a temperature controller module for lasers, laser diodes, and others of the above mentioned components, that overcomes the above described problems and disadvantages of present systems.